


Vintage Hutch

by Susan



Category: Starsky and Hutch - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Susan/pseuds/Susan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A history of Hutch's drinking...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vintage Hutch

Hutch had his first beer when he twelve. Stolen from his grandfather's fridge on  
a dare, he carried it to school the next day, wrapped in an old sweater and  
buried in his school bag beneath his American History textbook. Hiding behind  
his father's tool shed after school, he and Tommy Nilsson passed the lukewarm  
bottle of Schlitz back and forth between them, laughing and belching loudly.  
They buried the empty bottle under a rock when they were done. Hutch pocketed  
the cap for luck and carried in his back pocket all through high school.

The first time he got drunk, he was sixteen and sweet on a girl who barely knew  
his name. On the chance that she was secretly pining for him as much as he was  
pining for her, he asked her to be his date at junior prom. Darla laughed, the  
way that beautiful girls do, and told him she was "going steady with someone who  
matters." He'd just finished reading a Hemingway novel in which it seemed that  
every character drank to forget the pain of lost love. But all he could find at  
the back of the pantry was a half-empty bottle of peach schnapps and a dusty  
bottle of Stone's elderberry wine. He grabbed both bottles, tucked them beneath  
his flannel jacket, and headed to the woods behind the house. He was a quarter  
way through the bottle of elderberry wine when the trees began to blur. He liked  
the feeling of a world less solid than the one he was used to. He liked how the  
wine filled that part of him that had always felt hollow. He was three quarters  
the way through when he threw up all over the library's copy of "The Sun also  
Rises." It was dark when stumbled home, singing "My Darling Clementine" before  
vomiting, one last time, in his father's boots.

By his third year at the University of Minnesota, he drank weekends at local  
bars, listening to jazz and playing it cool. He learned to love the burn of  
scotch against his throat, the slow fire it fueled in his gut. He liked how the  
music sounded when it was filtered through a haze of cigarettes and whiskey. The  
first time he kissed a man – in the alley behind the Bella Notte in the middle  
of February – he was drunk on Canadian Club and the dangerous feeling of his  
hard-on pressed up against another man's cock.

It was Vanessa who taught him about wine. Until he met her – while he was  
working for her father in a job he hated – wine was something other people  
drank. People with money and a real French accent. She taught him about Pinot  
Noir and Beaujolais, about balance and nose and finish. She taught him that good  
wine wasn't always expensive, and expensive wine wasn't always good. That  
Chardonnay tasted best when poured over a woman's skin. Later, she taught him  
that drinking never cured a broken heart.

Most days now, he drank beer. Not every day, just most days. One bottle because  
he was thirsty, two because it had been a bad day, three because that's how many  
it took before it began to smooth the jagged edges of his life. Never more than  
four. More than four and he'd forget his rule and wake up hours later on the  
couch, the empty bottles staring at him accusingly from the coffee table. He  
wondered sometimes if he drank too much.

He still drank scotch. Single malt. Starsky called it "scotch tape" since they  
only seemed to drink it when they needed help holding together the pieces of  
their screwed up lives. He could go months without it, but then a case – it  
always seemed to be a case – had him searching for the shortest route to  
oblivion.

It was only later, after Starsky had made the move from the couch to Hutch's  
bed, that he found another route. It was then that Hutch discovered that Pabst  
Blue Ribbon, sucked out of the hollow of Starsky's neck, was the only drink he  
ever needed.


End file.
